Death in a Funhouse Mirror (13 page)

She smiled, and when she spoke again, there was a trace of humor in her voice. "Helene said that the way her male colleagues treated her—and even some of her female colleagues, for that matter—listening to her thoughtful, detailed, documented papers and then dismissing them as insignificant, reminded her of Humpty-Dumpty. You are all current on your Lewis Carroll, aren't you? So you will recall the conversation between Humpty-Dumpty and Alice, in which Alice attempts to make sense of what the Egg Man is saying, but there is no sense there to be made? The conversation goes like this:

"'When I use a word,' Humpty-Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.'

"'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'

"'The question is,' said Humpty-Dumpty, 'which is to be master—that's all.'"

Beside me, I heard Cliff mutter, "For God's sake, Lenora, Humpty-Dumpty at a funeral?"

"Helene believed that if you looked behind the words, there were truths that would require them to be given their proper meanings. That was the dreamer in Helene, the woman who believed in what was right. Who hoped that others would see what were to her such obvious truths. The realist in her recognized that everyone twists words and uses them for their own purposes and that part of Helene wanted to be master. She was a complicated person, and
de mortuis nil nisi bonum
notwithstanding, I loved her while I didn't always like her. Her death—let me not speak euphemistically—her murder, her slaughter, was a terrible loss institutionally, and personally. It is up to us—those of us who are left—to continue her work and ensure that her ideas and her ideals did not die with her. Her killer may think he has finally silenced her. We must not let him!" She struck at her chest with her fist. "There will always be a hollow spot here for Helene and an even bigger void is left in the psychiatric community." She left the lectern abruptly and strode back to her seat.

Her eulogy, or speech, or whatever it should be called, seemed to have lost momentum and wandered oddly before returning to that call to arms at the end. When I glanced around, I could see mine was not the only puzzled face. The minister moved quickly to get on with things, perhaps fearing that another strange speech might follow. Before long, her coffin was gone and we were leading the surge of people down the aisle and out into the street.

"Lenora was as batty as usual," Eve announced. "She's probably been waiting to use that quote from Humpty-Dumpty all her life."

"I wish she'd waited a while longer," Cliff said. "I could hardly refuse, when she called and said she wanted to speak. She was Helene's closest friend. I don't know what it is about her, though, but she always does something odd which undermines the efficacy of what she's trying to say. Are you coming back to the house with us, Thea?"

"Yes, shortly. I just have a few calls to make first."

"You're welcome to use the phone."

"She's got one in her car, Cliff," Eve said. "These are the nineties, remember?"

He shook his head. "Can't think of much I'd less rather have in my car. Except, perhaps, a drooling Saint Bernard." He turned away to greet some of the people who were coming up to him. Eve stayed with him while I retreated to my car, eased it out of the parking space, and headed off in search of someplace quiet to park. I ended up at what David used to call the IHOP, the International House of Pancakes, a wonderful place to spend Sunday mornings, lingering over their bland, generous American breakfasts and endless cups of coffee. There's nothing nouvelle about the IHOP, but if you're hungry in the morning and want a serious breakfast, it's a good place. Sitting there in the car, thinking about food, reminded me that once again I'd missed breakfast and lunch. There would be time for food later. I disciplined myself to stay in the car and use the phone, instead of rushing inside and throwing my hungry self on the mercy of some bored waitress.

After that I reluctantly drove to the house, glad to see, when I got there, that the street was jammed with cars. That would make it easier to carry out my plan, which was to stay a few minutes, tell Eve she could call me if she needed me, and get back to the office, a plan which assumed someone else could drive her home and that she wouldn't decide she needed to cling to me. I wanted to review the file before tomorrow's morning meeting, and put together some stuff for my meeting with Cliff, if he was still serious about it.

I was barely through the door when the tall woman who had spoken at the funeral, Lenora, grabbed me by the arm and asked if I could help her in the kitchen. Actually, she didn't so much ask as simply impress me, much as sailors were forced into the British navy. Soon I was circulating with a tray of delicious looking snacks, which vanished like mist in the sunshine before my hungry eyes. I reached for the last one just as someone else did, and found myself looking at a man who seemed vaguely familiar.

"I gather you're one of those people who don't return phone calls," he said.

"Please don't take it personally, Detective. Right now you're in a queue with about forty other people. I almost got to you yesterday, but then we had a staff emergency and I didn't get home until very late last night. I haven't even gotten to the office yet today. And you'd better let me eat that, or I may collapse at your feet. I've had nothing but one sandwich since yesterday morning." He took his hand away, leaving me free to eat the last delicious morsel on my tray, but he didn't look mollified. He looked annoyed. I was sorry to have annoyed him. On Saturday, when we'd met, I'd liked Florio immediately. The tiny bite of food hit my empty stomach so hard I could almost hear it, and suddenly I felt strange and lightheaded. It must have showed in my face, because Florio grabbed the tray, stuck it on the nearest level surface, and steered me through the kitchen, out onto the terrace, and into a chair.

"Don't move. I'll be right back." He returned before I could collect my scattered wits, carrying a glass of milk and a sandwich. He hovered over me like a nanny over a recalcitrant charge until I'd finished eating. "Better?" he asked, when I'd set the plate and glass down on the bricks.

"Much better. Thanks."

"Andre said you were like this. Like a dervish, is how he described you. Rushing around in a great swirl of activity, completely forgetting about eating or sleeping, and getting great mountains of work done. He thinks you need a keeper."

"Not that he's available for the job," I said. " He's a fine one to talk. The man needs a keeper himself. Every bit as wrapped up in his work as I am in mine. But you're not here to talk about Andre."

"No. I'm here to talk about Eve."

"I thought we went over all that on Saturday."

He shook his head. "I'm sorry if you find it tiresome, but sometimes I have to go back over the same ground several times, and you're an excellent source. Actually, we talked about Eve and her mother but we didn't talk about Eve and her father. I was going to offer to buy you lunch and ask you a few more questions if you'd called me back."

"I told you I was sorry about that. I'd be glad to help you, Detective. But this hardly seems the time or the place."

He tipped his head slightly sideways and stared at me. In the harsh gray daylight I could see how tired he was, the lines around his eyes etched deeper and a weary droop to his mouth. His shoulders sagged under his neatly pressed suit. "You're right," he said, "but if I let you go, how do I know you won't whirl away and not touch down again for days?"

I rubbed my forehead, which felt tight and sore. I could feel a headache coming. It could have been the low pressure system but it was probably from not eating. "I'm not trying to be difficult, Detective. Sometimes in my business, we have to scramble to make a living and right now I'm scrambling as fast as I can. What are you doing for breakfast tomorrow?"

"Breakfast?" he said warily. I could see him unhappily contemplating a predawn drive to the North Shore. "How about lunch instead? And can you call me Dom?"

"I haven't got time for lunch. I mean breakfast. You know, the first meal of the day. Supposed to be very important, nutritionally speaking. What if I meet you at the Ihop at eight?"

"Ihop? The pancake house?"

"I'll even buy you breakfast. You'll love it."

"You mean right here in Anson?"

"Wherever it is. You know where I mean. The one right down the street."

"You've got a deal, Thea. You've made this worn-out old man very happy." He was neither worn-out nor old, but it sounded like he felt both. Before I could stop myself, I was giving him advice.

"It's not the years, Dom, it's the mileage, you know. Why don't you take a break, go home and whirl Mrs. Florio around the room. Use up some of that energy you were going to use to dump on me."

"Rosie is in a wheelchair," he said.

"Wheelchair or not, I'll bet Rosie is a hot ticket."

He considered that and nodded. "She is."

"I'm sorry about the wheelchair."

"It was a drunk driver. Smashed right into her while she was crossing the street. After that, I single-handedly doubled the number of OUI arrests in Anson. That's how I got to be a detective," he said.

"By making so many arrests?"

"Yeah." He grinned. "I'd arrested just about everyone in town who was important. They were dying to get me off patrol so they promoted me. Rosie thought it was hilarious. She kept making rude remarks about the Peter Principle. But I've come to like it. Shall we rejoin the company?" He held out his hand. I took it and he pulled me to my feet. "Maybe you're right," he said at the door, "maybe I'll go home and bother Rosie. She'd like that. On the other hand, considering the case of characters assembled, I should probably stay here and detect."

"But these are her friends. These are the people who loved her."

"Ah, but 'Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned....' "

"So these are the usual suspects?"

"Correct."

"Then there is truth to the old saying about the criminal always returning to the scene of the crime?"

"There's more truth in the old police adage that victims are most often murdered by people they know. And these are the people she knew."

Andre had said the same thing. "But the paper said that a witness had reported a suspicious young man who looked like a street person lurking in the bushes around the time she was killed. Surely that's more likely, in a crime so senseless and violent?"

"Unless someone hated her."

"But who? Except for some rather strident psychological politics, I think she lived a rather staid life. Surely psychologists don't kill each other over things like that, they merely argue them to death." An image of two psychologists, lying on the floor in extremis, having argued themselves literally to death, flashed into my mind, followed by an image of the first woman who had spoken at the funeral. "But she treated battered women, didn't she? What about an enraged husband?"

"We're pursuing it," he said. "I thought you were in a tearing hurry to leave?"

"It's your fatal charm," I said. "You could get a stone to talk."

"Probably wouldn't have anything interesting to say, though, would it? See you at breakfast." He opened the door and went inside. I went back to the chair where I'd been sitting, picked up my plate and glass and took them to the kitchen. Then I went to say good-bye to Cliff and Eve.

Eve was sitting on the couch next to a very large man. They were holding hands. "Oh, there you are," she said. "I thought you'd gone. This is my friend Waldemar Becker. Thea Kozak." We shook hands. Becker had a brooding, Neanderthal sort of attractiveness. Protruding forehead with thick blond eyebrows, jutting cheekbones and a prominent jaw. His mouth was half-hidden by a bushy bronze mustache and his teeth, when he smiled, were sturdy and white and looked like they'd been designed to crush corn. "Waldemar will drive me home." She regarded him with a gaze that was possessive to the point of being icky.

"So you don't need me anymore?"

"No. But thanks for picking me up." She stuck her small hand back into his and nuzzled his shoulder with her chin.

I'd planned to urge her to call me if she needed someone to talk to, but her curt dismissal stung. Good-bye, Thea. Thanks for everything, you've been replaced. I felt a twinge of what I'd felt in eighth grade when I was supposed to go to the movies with my best friend Sherry and she stood me up without even calling because a boy had asked her to go with him instead. The twinge only lasted a few seconds, though, before it was swept away by a wave of reason reminding me I wasn't the center of everyone's universe. Besides, I'd been planning to abandon her, hadn't I? I left Eve playing an intimate finger-game with Becker and went to look for Cliff.

After passing through three rooms of guests in somber plumage, I found him in the library, sitting on another couch next to another attractive blond male, and they were also holding hands. It was beginning to be a scene worthy of Fellini. His companion was slight except for extremely broad shoulders which gave him the unbalanced physique that broadcasts "swimmer." I'd seen him on Saturday in Cliff's living room. "Thea," Cliff said, getting up as I approached, "I'd like you to meet my friend Rowan Ansel. Thea Kozak."

"Pleased to meet you," I said. Standing, Dr. Ansel was short and his oversized shoulders made his hips seem unnaturally narrow. His pale hair was straight and fine and the features on his pale face were delicate, almost feminine. His whole demeanor projected uncertainty and discomfort, like a teenager trying to seem at home at an adult party.

He dropped my hand and stepped back. Cliff took it and held on, his other hand on my shoulder. "Thanks for taking care of Eve," he said. "She really needed you. It was so important for her to have someone to turn to. Maybe she'll be okay now that her Viking is back. But if you could keep an eye on her..."

"Of course I will. Are we still on for tomorrow?"

"Certainly," he said, seeming puzzled that I'd needed to ask. "Three-thirty, right?"